vintage axe

J

James Tebbs

Joined
Dec 15, 2018
Messages
2
Hiya, anyone know anything about this axe makers mark or its history?? Would be cool to know more about it!
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On my part the short answer would be NO.

Slightly expanded, it may be something like this:"This is a very typical axe for the Balkans.Used as an all-around,universal tool,meaning that for those regions it serves for chopping(both felling and bucking),and splitting,And hewing;differences in head and haft-shape between all those uses being slight and subtle.
The particular axe in the photo is not very worn,it appears to be in an excellent,working,maintained shape and condition.
Again by appearance i'd say that it came from a smallish manufacturer,and quite long ago,early 20th century.It was forged by hand,with only the blade ground afterwards,possibly even forge-welded also "by hand"(as in using small-scale industrial machinery where the work is manipulated by hand as it being worked by a machine).
The touch-mark(those are probably cyrillic letters R and A) is a bit too nice for a a totally rustic village smith,nor yet would it be from a huge,industrial manufacturer either(those would be more complex and contain more info).
All in all a well-made tool from a responsible maker who was not ashamed to brand it as theirs,and went as far as making a nice,bold mark for the purpose..."
 
It looks quite a bit like those Japanese bearded hatchets as well. Curious to see convergent evolution in hand tools as sometimes happens.
 
James Tebbs said:
it was off etsy and was from a bulgarian company, not sure if that was where it was made and used though
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Fmont said:
I am definitely interested to know how Square_peg surmised that. This forum has proven invaluable.
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I'm sorry. I need to post warnings about these more often. There are tons of these Bull-garia axes being sold to the unsuspecting on ebay. They beat them up a little, rust them, sometimes hang them on rotten sticks.

Bulgaria%20axe.jpg

China%20axe.jpg


Edit to add: The ebay axe pictured was likely legit. But beware of cheap fakes. They are out there.
 
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Square_peg said:
There are tons of these Bull-garia axes being sold to the unsuspecting on ebay. They beat them up a little, rust them, sometimes hang them on rotten sticks.
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Square-peg,i'm not sure that i'd agree as to the origin of that axe-possibly in some cases someone may find it worth the trouble to fake one using these Chinese forgings,but that's be kinda high-tech:)
Bulgaria(Slovenia,Macedonia,Horvatia,Serbia,Kosovo,et c.:) are full of these genuinely old,country implements...many of them dirt-cheap...
https://balkan.auction/bg/category/...strumenti-i-nozhove/bradvi-saturi/?offset=240
 
In any case cheap replicas are available for next to nothing and they have been ebay selling this style axe out of Bulgaria continuously for the past 5 years. I've seen hundreds of them go.
 
From what I can see from the picture of the autor of this tread the axe is a normal vintage handforged Bulgarian axe.
It's extremely difficult to forge an axe like that.
Believe me.
Unfortunately I have to agree with Square_Peg that there is a tons of real forged Bulgarian bearded axes on ebay.
As a comunist country we had a forging plant especially for axes and during the comunist years it was supposed to produse millions of axes...
I'm just not agree thet they are fake.
In general If you have some "axe culture" you can always recognize the chinese fake cast axe and the 100 years old Austrian axe that I'm selling on his pictures...
Square_peg I think knows me well...
As I remember he got one of the axes I'm producing...
I'm reputable seller at ebay a the example with the vintage Austrian axehead I'm selling on ebay is not suitable.
Here is a link to article about Bulgarian bearded axes:
http://axessive.com/bulgarian-bearded-axes-hammer-and-sickle
 
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ipt said:
Square_peg I think knows me well...
As I remember he got one of the axes I'm producing...
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Yes, I have one of your 'Axe and Adze' tools and it is a high quality tool. I would trust buying from you. I don't know who all sells Bulgarian axes on ebay or whether they have your good character. Is it your opinion that most Bulgarian axes on ebay are genuine and of good quality?
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
It kinda looks like the blumau mark, but those are actually not scythe blades (sensen in German), but straw knives (or strohmesser in German) . Straw knives are used in roofing on straw roofs. But the mark isn't on there as a logo or in text. It could be austrian because its fairly similar in design, but it could also be from somewhere else. Who knows?

if its German/Austrian your looking for the words:

"zwei gekreuzte sensen marke" ( 2 crossed scythes makersmark/logo )

or

"gekreuzte sensen marke" ( crossed scythes makersmark/logo )

or

"gekreuzte sensen" ( crossed scythes )
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The Strohmesser

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The Sense
640px-Sense.svg.png


Agreed. Kevin, you say "Strohmesser", I say "Strohmesser" lol.
 
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It is really hard to find this axe even here.
There is some kind of a legend that during the end of 1890's The Ottoman Empire made an order to an Austrian manufacturer special batch of this axes...
For me it is something like the grail to find it...
I have collection of 500+ axes...
Most of them beards. Bulgarian, German, Austrian... But only 3 with this mark.
 
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